1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to image forming apparatus, charge server, and image forming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
In an environment, a user can choose one from image forming apparatuses, and uses it for copying, printing or transmitting facsimile data. In the environment, to perform charge management for each of users or each of sections, a charge server is connected to a network with the image forming apparatuses, and every time when a job ends in one of the image forming apparatuses, a job log is transmitted from the image forming apparatus to the charge server. The job log contains information necessary to charge management.
In general, the image forming apparatus organizes charge information on many pages, and inserts it to the job log.
In a specific example, upon a request from an image forming apparatus, a functional server obtains, for example, news data from a database, and transmits it to the image forming apparatus. The image forming apparatus executes printing of the news data. In this system, it is possible to charge adequately for only pages chosen by a user before printing. The functional server generates print data files of respective pages, and transmits the respective files with respective charge information (that contains a charge amount) to the image forming apparatus in turn. The image forming apparatus displays a total charge amount for the pages chosen by the user, and transmits the total charge amount information to the functional server upon a printing start instruction by the user.
In the aforementioned environment, to perform authentication, authorisation, charge management, usage limitation and so on for each of users, a management server is connected to a network with the image forming apparatuses, and unitarily manages authentication, authorisation, charge management, usage limitation, and so on.
However, a user can not use the image forming apparatus when the management server can not execute authentication and authorisation due to server down, disconnection in a wired/wireless network, or the like. To solve this problem, an image forming apparatus performs user authentication locally with authentication information stored in a removable medium capable of connecting to the server.
An image forming apparatus has a section management function for limiting the number of pages printed in a predetermined period by each of sections. In the section management function, a user table has a user ID and a section ID that are related to each other, a section management table has the section ID, a limit number of printed pages and the total number of printed pages that are related to each other. With referring to the tables, it is determined whether or not the total number exceeds the limit number when every page is finished printing, and a user is forbidden to use this apparatus if it is determined that the total number exceeds the limit number.
In an image forming system, many image forming apparatuses like the aforementioned image forming apparatus are connected to a LAN, and a user can use whichever of the apparatuses. This system can not perform the section management at one place. In addition, due to increment of users, the user table can not be stored in a memory in an image forming apparatus if the memory is not large enough. To solve this problem, in the system, a management server is connected to the LAN, stores the user table in a storage device of the server, and performs authentication and charge management with the user table.